The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Bill Fay

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Bill Fay has died at 81 years old. I am sure many of you will have heard of him. After two albums of melancholic singer songwriting (more pop than folk) he went off the radar in the early 70s and I remember it being reported in Mojo in the 90s that he was presumably a Jeremy Spencer style casualty. Nonsense! He had just been dropped by his label and was getting on with his life: a lesson for us all in avoiding dangerous rock romanticism. His comeback via Wilco’s cover version of ‘ Be Not So Fearful’ was heartening, and he made some good mature recordings. Apparently a disciple of Catholic mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, I think his second album, the suitably apocalyptic and odd ‘Time of the Last Persecution’, is his best.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/feb/23/cult-folk-singer-bill-fay-who-wrote-the-healing-day-dies-aged-81?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Mary Quant RIP

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Every bit as influential in creating the Swinging 60s as the Beatles in her own way – arguably more so If you were young and female.

RIP Mary Q

RIP Patrick Haggerty aka Lavender Country

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I only heard Lavender Country in the past few years but I absolutely love them. I reckon that Mark Eitzel and John Grant owe a bit of a debt to them and to Patrick Haggerty. The world’s first openly gay country band, they did gay songs in a straight country style and were brilliant. Crying These Cocksucking Tears is their most famous song. RIP Patrick Haggerty, I wish I heard you earlier

John Miles – dead

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Now largely forgotten and perfectly wrongly timed as his crafted rock came up against the sea change to punk rock, John Miles has joined the great gig in the sky. This track is probably his best known, and a prime chunk of bombastic cheesy nonsense it is – not that I see that as a bad thing, especially with those profound lyrics (which Jarvis Cocker once used as a speech showing magnificent good taste). John Miles also had the funky “slow Down”, “High Fly” and, er, others.. I saw him at Reading in 1977. Harmless, competent, “good generic rock”. He was clearly technically good, given he later worked for Tina Turner in her stadium years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF6mk2Sq4yY

RIP U-Roy

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U-Roy and related 70s reggae artists appealed to me in a way Bob Marley stopped.

It’s an indica versus sativa thing; do you prefer to be high, or to be stoned? I’d rather be high and my brain cells sparkling, not dull-headed and semi-sedated

Strictly roots and dubwise homages to 70s reggae here, please.

A sideman leaves us…

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Eddie Harsch, late of the Black Crowes, died the other day. One shouldn’t speculate at why he left us at 59, but I have a sinking feeling based on his, and the band’s, history of hard drugs. Nevertheless, he helped to give us some wonderful music and on their night, they were very hard to beat.

I could link to something from a live recording, but this from the Crowes’ second album is my idea of the apogee of his playing. At 3:56, after a wonderfully lazy drum fill from Steve Gorman, Eddie goes gospel, and Thorn In My Pride finds a new gear. Off you fly, Ed.